Vicki Cox here. I have recently had a minor breakthrough in my search for the parents of James Francis Crawford born Liverpool 1833. A newspaper posting of the wedding of James Francis to Mary Slater in Christchurch on the 24th February 1870 mentions his father, James Crawford Esq., deceased, of Claughton Park Cheshire. Wedding certificates of that time in NZ did not as in English marriage certificates require the fathers of groom and spouse to be recorded. I therefore hope that a Crawford in the Wirral/ Birkenhead area of the county of Lancashire may see this posting. Many thanks Vicki Cox.